Running with scissors

Mario Ingoglia says hes ready to cut the funny business at city hall

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Wearing a thick black
leather wristband and faded black T-shirt, Mario Ingoglia lounges in a
swiveling office chair, most of his weight on one armrest. Seated across from him on the set of Metro Variety,
Ingoglia’s cable Access 4 show, is George Bastin, a candidate for the
Springfield City Council. Bastin is dressed in a dark suit and maroon tie. “You’re a sharp-dressed man,” quips
Ingoglia, a tailor whose own fashion sense is more Johnny Cash than Giorgio
Armani. Ingoglia is what might best be described as a
throwback, a holdover from a time when real men drove real cars made of
metal, and he periodically slips in the dialect of the 1960s and
’70s, punctuating his sentences with “man” and
“brother.”Even Ingoglia’s shop — Metro Tailoring
& Alterations, located in the city’s Vinegar Hill neighborhood
— appears to be a shrine to decades gone by. Few spaces remain
unoccupied by collectibles, and the walls are filled with photographs. A
black-and-white portrait of President John F. Kennedy hangs on one wall, a
nighttime shot of the now-fallen World Trade Center on another. As a resident of the ward that Bastin sought to
represent on the City Council, Ingoglia shares many of his concerns,
including the need to step up police patrols, stop fly-dumping, hold taxes
in check, fix neighborhood sidewalks, and repave streets. At no point during the half-hour interview does
Ingoglia bring up his own write-in bid for mayor. But as a small-business
owner, living in the heart of the city, Ingoglia believes that he is more
in touch with Springfield’s working men and women than either Mayor
Tim Davlin or Ward 10 Ald. Bruce Strom, frontrunners in the race.In December, Ingoglia filed 465 signatures to be
placed on the ballot for the consolidated primary election, but his
application was tossed the next month when it was determined — first
by the municipal elections board, then by a Sangamon County judge —
that he had committed a fatal error in not indicating on his nominating
petitions which office he was seeking.But, as a leather specialist, the 48-year-old
Ingoglia knows a thing or two about toughness — and he’s
refusing to go away quietly. Ingoglia, a first-time candidate, says his political
inexperience is partially to blame for his failure to get on the ballot but
figures he may have been a marked man because of his adamant stance on a
controversial issue. From the moment he announced his candidacy, Ingoglia
has vowed to relax Springfield’s indoor-smoking ban, which went into
effect in September and was cited as the reason several local bars have
gone out of business since the start of the year. After Ingoglia was thrown off the ballot, his backers
assured him that they would be there for him if he ran as a write-in
candidate, but whether ban opponents will keep their promises and support
Ingoglia or they’re just blowing smoke remains to be seen. Ingoglia decided to toss his hat into the ring when
it became apparent to him that Strom, a three-term alderman who is
term-limited on the City Council, would face off against incumbent Davlin.
He found both choices “lacking,” he says.
“They’re both very similar styles of
politicians — they both favor very similar causes, although
one’s a Democrat and one’s a Republican,” he says.
“I thought I could inject more of a working man’s perspective
in the mayor’s race.” Ingoglia, also a Republican, believes that had he
remained on the ballot, he would have had enough support to knock Strom,
the chief architect of the comprehensive indoor-smoking ban, out of
Tuesday’s primary election, forcing a contest between himself and
Davlin for the city’s top job. Still, Ingoglia understands that challenging Strom
and Davlin, who are backed by the local Republican and Democratic parties,
respectively, won’t be easy. Although Strom may be at a 10-to-1 cash disadvantage
to Davlin, Ingoglia won’t be able to afford yard signs until after
his first fundraiser, this week, but at the very least Ingoglia is to the
local mayor’s race what Green Party candidate Rich Whitney was to
last fall’s Illinois gubernatorial contest. He’s an
alternative. Born in Castel Vetrano, Sicily, Ingoglia moved with
his family to central Illinois in 1972 after living in New York City for a
brief period. The Ingoglias wound up in quieter Jacksonville, Ill., which
his father, Antonio, also a tailor, said reminded him of their homeland. Held back one year because he spoke no English,
Ingoglia graduated from Jacksonville High School in 1977 and then spent
two-and-a-half years at Southern Illinois University–Carbondale,
studying criminal justice in the hope of becoming a corrections officer. In 1980 he moved to Southern California, where he
worked for such retailers as Nordstrom, Lord & Taylor, and Saks Fifth
Avenue. There, he says, is where he was taught the philosophy that the
customer is always right, and he is ready to adopt a modified version
— replace “customer” with “citizen” —
as the mantra of his administration should he be elected mayor of
Springfield. Ingoglia, who is single, returned to Springfield in
1991 and opened his shop that same year. “I’m one chromosome from being the
perfect man,” he jokes. “I can sew, but I can’t
cook.” Part of the reason he decided to run was the sight of
his fellow small-business owners, restaurant and tavern owners, suffering
as a result of the smoking ban. A nonsmoker (the cigar he flourishes is just for
show), Ingoglia agrees that a statewide smoking ban is inevitable. In fact,
an Illinois House committee passed one such measure just last week. But
even if the Legislature passes a no-smoking law, it won’t go into
effect right away, Ingoglia says, and he would like to give local
establishments some relief in the meantime. Ingoglia supports issuing smoking licenses to bars
— restaurants would be excluded — that restrict entrance to
people over the age of 21. A similar effort, led by Ward 3 Ald. Frank Kunz,
who owns a heating-and-cooling business,to amend the ordinance to permit smoking in establishments
that promise to keep out folks under the age of 18, failed to gain the
support of fellow aldermen. Even Strom, who championed the ban, acknowledged in
an interview with Illinois Times last month that the smoking ban may be in jeopardy,
depending on the composition of the next City Council. Ingoglia suspects that it was his opposition to the
smoking ban that caused his petitions to be scrutinized so closely. In January, the municipal elections board, comprisingSpringfield Mayor Tim Davlin,
City Clerk Cecilia Tumulty, Ward 4 Ald. Chuck Redpath, and Ward 2 Ald.
Frank McNeil, who served as an alternate on the panel, took
Ingoglia’s name off the Feb. 27 primary ballot.Afterwards, he filed a “Declaration of Intent
to be a Write-in Candidate” form with the Sangamon County clerk. Only
candidates who file this form will have their votes tabulated. Anyone
wanting to run as write-in candidate may file this declaration up until 5
p.m. on the Tuesday immediately preceding the election. Ingoglia believes that the objection to his
petitions, filed by Carly Caminiti, a local anti-tobacco activist, was
lodged on behalf of the American Lung Association, a key player in the push
to turn Springfield smoke-free. Kathy Drea, the public-policy director for the lung
association’s Illinois chapter, calls Ingoglia’s accusation
that her group initiated the objection by proxy untrue. “I was fighting for the small guy in this
regard,” Ingoglia says. “Unfortunately, if the ban starts in
’08 statewide, then a guy’s out money and business for almost
two years.” With his smoking stance, he says he is representing
the middle class and supporting veterans who view the ban as having their
rights taken away. “They fought a world war for us, and they
cannot smoke freely in their private associations? Who’s to say to a
gentleman who fought in World War II, and now is in the last leg of his
life, [that he ] can no longer smoke in his own private club?” he
asks. “But I don’t want to spend all day
talking about that — that’s a dead horse.”Once the smoking issue has dissipated, Ingoglia would
make public safety a priority. “Public safety occurs simply by observing the
neighborhood,” he says, pointing out the Enos Park Neighborhood
Association as an example of a proactive community-watchdog group. At the same time, he acknowledges that the
Springfield Police Department needs to dedicate more detectives to solving
unsolved murders. “They’re under fire right now because
they have own their version of the good-ol’-boy network, but I
didn’t appreciate what Bruce Strom said about Don Kliment,”
Ingoglia says. (Strom has said that he would likely replace Kliment, the
current police chief, should he become the next mayor.) “[Kliment’s] had a lot of obstacles
thrown at him,” Ingoglia says. “They need to work with other
agencies, whether it be the sheriff’s department or the U.S. marshal,
because there are a lot of people caught doing local crimes that are
already in those systems.” Ingoglia is also “totally against” the
idea of a combining the SPD with the Sangamon County Sheriff’s
Office, and he was opposed to the merger of the county and city health
departments.Other issues he cites include building a firehouse in
the city’s southwest corner, demolishing vacant homes, and holding
absentee landlords accountable for the upkeep of their property.In addition, Ingoglia has worked with the
city’s homeless, an experience he calls eye-opening. He says that the
city should take the lead in coordinating with social-service agencies to
provide homeless individuals counseling and job-training services. As
mayor, he says, he wouldn’t remove the homeless people sleeping
outside the Lincoln Library. “They consider themselves a family,” he
says. “I wouldn’t try to break that up.”One group Ingoglia would love to have in his corner
are the proprietors of bars and taverns. However, Steve Riedl, executive director of the
Illinois Licensed Beverage Association, the trade group for many of the
area’s watering holes and eateries and the organization opposing the
ban most fervently, says that his group will be endorsing Davlin. “Mr. Ingoglia is a nice man,” Riedl says.
“We deeply appreciate his position on this issue. However, one has to
be realistic in these situations.” Ingogliais realistic about his chances and says he just plans to
have fun with his campaign. For example, the yard signs he’s ordered
— with the “i” in “Mario” replaced with a
cigarette — will end up being collectors’ items, he says. He’s also planning to enter several classic
automobiles he owns, among them a 1959 Cadillac coupe and a 1960 Nash
Metropolitan sedan, as floats in this year’s St. Patrick’s Day
parade. Ingoglia is worried about one thing, however. Because
he’s a write-in candidate, voters are going to have to make an
attempt to spell his surname (pronounced in-GO-lee-uh). According to Sangamon County Clerk Joe Aiello,
election judges are empowered by the courts to interpret the intent of the
voter — which, he admits, could lead to problems. “Obviously if they put ‘Mario
Smith,’ we’re not going to give it to him,” Aiello says.
“If somebody just put ‘Mario’ down, then that’s a
stretch and that becomes more subjective. I would recommend that the judges
not count it toward him even though he might be the only Mario.”The candidate’s solution: wristbands imprinted
with Ingoglia’s full name that supporters can take into voting booths
— which, he believes, could also become collectors’ items.Contact R.L. Nave at rnave@illinoistimes.com.